VMware Cross-Cloud Architecture

Securing virtual switch ports

Virtual switches act in the same way as a physical switch in regard to the types of traffic that can be passed. As a result, both the standard virtual switch and vSphere Distributed Switch have security policies that can be configured to restrict different types of traffic.

Consider the following policies that are available with vSphere virtual switches:

• Promiscuous mode: The ability to allow a guest adapter to see all traffic passed on to a virtual switch.
• MAC address changes: The ability to accept or reject MAC address changes that have been made within the guest OS of a VM.
• Forged transmits: The ability to reject traffic that has different MAC addresses between the source and the frame.
• Ingress traffic shaping ...